‘Winter of discontent’ Labour MP lambasts Grant Shapps over supply chain shortages

David Lammy MP, laid into the Transport Minister on BBC Question Time during a heated debate on HGV drivers and the recent supply chain shortages. Issues with the supply chain as well as staff shortages have led to food shortages across UK supermarkets.

British restaurants including Nando’s, Greggs and McDonald’s, have been forced to apologise to disappointed customers for a lack of some menu items in recent weeks.

During a furious tirade against the transport secretary, Mr Lammy said: “What we are looking at is the winter of discontent, we have shortages of staff, shortages of supplies and shortages of skills.

“Why has this happened? Largely because of the promises your party [Conservatives] made on Brexit, have not been delivered.

“Where is the trade deal with the United States? Where is the trade deal with India? We haven’t got one.”

He added: “Of course, we need to get on with the visas so these people can come in, it’s not just HGVs, it’s fruit pickers, it’s caterers, it’s people in concert halls, right across this country there are shortages.

“You promised immigration would come down, you know it will need to go up if we are to deal with these problems.”

Earlier this month, the UK Government announced 50,000 more HGV driving tests would be made available in order to encourage more people into lorry driving.

Mr Shapps earlier in the show said nothing to quench the fears of the audience when discussing a potential shortage in the run up to Christmas.

Kate Andrews, economics editor at the Spectator continued the debate, saying: “If you want to get thousands more HGV drivers on the road you raise wages, you improve their working conditions, workers are becoming the new bosses they can ask for a lot more than before.

“The flip side of it is waging are going up, workers who got us through the pandemic, the people who couldn’t stay home, who were in the shops, delivering the packages, driving on the road, they are about to be valued so much more than they were a decade before when they were struggling for stagnant wages.”

She added: “I am really torn on this one as somebody who was very supportive of Brexit and thinks it has a lot of opportunity.

“I was also devastated to see free movement go, if there is a benefit then it is native workers are about to get that big pay raise.

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“This shortage is across Europe now. It is not at all obvious that we are going to solve the problem overnight, workers are now empowered to ask for more money, they should do and ask for better working conditions.”

Andrew Bridgen MP previously spoke about the pay and conditions of HGV drivers, claiming only half of people qualified to be HGV drivers are actually in the industry.

He said on BBC Newsnight: “We’re not short of HGV drivers per se, we’ve got 600,000 qualified to drive those trucks, but only 300,000 chose to work in the industry.

“That is about pay and conditions, which have been suppressed for a long time by bringing in EU migrants, who are willing to work for those wages and conditions, but were never willing to work for long, opening the door to 20,000, 30,000 drivers will ever only be a short-term fix.

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“The industry needs to modernise, it needs to improve pay and conditions, we need to retain and attract young people into the industry.”

He added: “I raised this with the government six years ago when we were 50,000 lorry drivers short, urging them to bring in measures that would allow HGV training into the apprentice programme.

“The government actually did that three months ago, when we were 100,000 lorry drivers short, we’ve got an endemic problem of recruitment in the UK, the average lorry driver is normally a man and he’s well in his 50s, we are not attracting young people into an industry.”